Education leaders tell accrediting commission that CCSF is 95% fixed

A pair of chancellors — one presiding over California’s community college system and the other over City College of San Francisco — made a last-ditch effort Wednesday to persuade a seemingly unshakeable commission that City College should not lose its accreditation and close.

California Community College Chancellor Brice Harris(wire photo)

In a closed-door meeting in Sacramento, Brice Harris, the state chancellor, and Chancellor Art Tyler of City College, presented the commission with a 103-page report that shows the huge college of nearly 80,000 students “is in substantial compliance with the accreditation requirements of the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges,” according to the report.

The chancellors hope to persuade the 19-member commission to override the stated view of its three leaders: the powerful but non-voting President Barbara Beno, Chairwoman Sherrill Amador and Vice-Chairman Steven Kinsella. The three have said publicly that federal law prohibits the commission from extending the July 31 revocation deadline.

In their argument, the chancellors are expected to cite repeated assurances from Lynn Mahaffie, a senior accrediting director with the U.S. Department of Education, that the commission can legally adopt a new rule at its meeting that would allow it to extend the July 31 deadline. (The college actually has a reprieve through October, when a judge will decide if the commission properly evaluated City College in the first place. If so, the college would lose accreditation at that time.)

The private commission, which accredits 134 colleges in California and the Pacific islands, meets only twice a year.

“So this is the only opportunity in which the chancellors can speak to the commission as a whole,” said Harris’ spokesman, Paul Feist. “They are making the case that the college has completed 95 percent of its recovery, and it deserves more time to complete the remaining items.”

CCSF Chancellor Art Tyler(Photo by Brant Ward)

Beno, Amador and Kinsella recently told The Chronicle that colleges must be 100 percent in compliance with accreditation standards, and that City College fell far short of that when an evaluation team last checked, in spring 2013. The three said the commission is under no obligation to evaluate the college anew.

“The commission evaluated the college and made a decision,” Beno said on May 15 in San Francisco.

City College was first found to be out of compliance in 2012 with poor financial controls, tangled governance and a lack of educational oversight to such an extent that college officials didn’t know what courses to offer or whether students were meeting learning objectives in every class. The college also had outdated computer systems, insufficient libraries and student support services. It failed to collect student fees and could not produce accurate financial reports.

On Wednesday afternoon, Harris and Tyler said those problems are largely fixed, and asked the commission to evaluate the college again.

The commission typically waits until July to announce the actions it takes in June.